Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Hattie's Two Valentines

What do two lambs and a hair blow dryer have in common? For the answer, keep reading.

Around 4:30 am on Sunday, February 14th , one of our Hampshire ewes, Hattie, gave birth to her two Valentines ... Doris and Dorothy. We were expecting Hattie to deliver on Sunday or Monday, so we had brought her into the barn and out of the winter weather a couple of days earlier. Unlike the day before, with temperatures in the 40's, Valentine's morning brought a big change ... eight inches of snow had fallen Saturday afternoon and the outside temperatures had fallen below zero!

With temperatures that low, lambs can be challenged with hypothermia, so we paid extra close attention to these two little girls. Shepherd Doug discovered the lambs during his routine 5 am round and notified the rest of the family. We all set to work, drying and warming the new lambs. Our tools included the family blow dryer ... it was brought to the barn and used to blow warm air on the lambs. Within 15 minutes, the lamb's wool started to dry and the little girls began perking up.

We have found the blow dryer to be an effective and portable tool for warming and drying lambs which have gotten a little cold.


Doris (white) - 14 lbs. 2 oz.

Dorothy (white w/ black markings) - 11 lbs. 7 oz.


1 comment:

crazycrafter said...

Oh my word! They are so darling! That is a great idea to use a hairdryer! Come to think of it, we should use that on our little black sheep/poodle/human Daisy!
Hannah